How kisses 'turned to sex assault' at Cambridge University

Thursday 6 March 2008 02:22 BST

A Cambridge University student told a court yesterday how a fellow undergraduate knocked back glasses of absinthe before he stripped off her clothes, pinned her to the floor and simulated sex with her.

The 23-year-old said Jack Gillett made drunken advances after he invited her to his room when they met outside a college bar.

Although she willingly kissed him at first, she claimed he became increasingly aggressive and the attack continued despite her "continuously" telling him to stop.

Describing the moments before she fled from 22-year-old Gillett's room, she said: "He was lying on top of me and kissing me.

"He pushed my knees up towards my chest and then he was sort of grinding against me.

"I was continuously telling him to stop. I just got more insistent, saying 'Seriously Jack, stop it'.

"He completely ignored me."

Cambridge Crown Court heard that the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, visited Trinity College bar on the night of June 4 last year.

She had "four or five" shots of Malibu before leaving with a male friend shortly after 11pm.

Outside, they bumped into Gillett, now a research student at the university's Shoenberg Laboratory for Quantum Matter, which studies magnetism and superconductivity.

The woman, who is at another college, knew him through a "friend of a friend" and accepted his offer to come to his room in the college for a drink.

Gillett poured a glass of highly-alcoholic absinthe for himself and the woman but she said he downed both after she decided not to drink hers.

After a few minutes, the third student left and she and Gillett, whom she described as "extremely drunk", were left alone and started kissing.

She said: "[Gillett] started touching my breasts and I don't really remember what happened, but I know that I resisted.

"He wasn't exactly using force, but he was kind of ignoring my resistance."

She added: "After a bit, I said something derogatory like 'You're a weirdo', because he was being a bit forceful."

The woman, a slightly built blonde, said she managed to leave and went to see friends elsewhere in the building.

But she admitted returning to Gillett's room minutes later because the friends were fixing a computer and needed a part they thought he might have.

She said: "He started kissing me again.

"He started touching my breasts and I said 'I need to go home', and he said 'You can't go home just yet'.

"He started taking my T-shirt off and I tried to stop him.

"He used force to pull it off and then started taking my bra off.

"I said 'stop it', but I stopped trying to resist, because I didn't know what to do."

Gillett, who was fully-clothed, pulled her to the floor and lay on top of her, she claimed.

She said: "I was telling him to stop over and over again.

"He was pressing down on me quite hard, simulating the sex act.

"After a while, Jack pulled my trousers off.

"I tried to stop him. I was kicking."

She said Gillett forced his hand inside her pants but, after a couple of minutes, he "suddenly seemed to hear me".

"He said 'Do you want me to stop?' and I said 'Er, yes'," she told the court.

"He said: 'I'll do whatever you want. If you want me to stop, just tell me'.

"Then he stopped and got off me.'

The woman, who reported the incident several days later, said she "wasn't even tipsy".

Asked why she returned to Gillett's room in spite of his behaviour, she added: "He was just being a typical drunk man. I wasn't worried about it."

Under cross-examination from Sally Hobson, defending, she said she had been introduced to Gillett in 2006 and had twice asked him out for a drink.

She said she had not shouted to alert other people because she "wanted to stop him without creating a scene".

Prosecutor Jonathan Seely said Gillett told police he thought the woman "had a crush" on him.

"He said there was consensual touching, but when she demonstrated she didn't want it to go any further, he stopped."